At Woobox we strive to make our blogs helpful and inspirational. We assume everyone wants a successful promotion to increase followers and conversions.
And yet, maybe we’ve ignored an untapped market. Some people might want their promotions to be terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad failures!
(Everyone else: consider this a “DO NOT” article.)
The ‘Like and Share.’
A sure-fire way to fail miserably is a promotion instructing users to “Enter by Liking and Sharing.” This method works for Sweepstakes and any offer-type. It’s a brazen violation of Facebook (and other social media) policies.
Just add copy about your promotion being for “Fans only” and how users are “Required to Like and Share.” The Facebook police will be right along to remove your offer. If you’re fortunate, they’ll block your entire page!
The ‘Take the data and run!’
Okay, the promotion “succeeded.” We collected all the traffic and data for future marketing. So let’s go silent. Let’s never announce the winner or award a prize. You won’t believe how fast bad reviews, complaints, and lost customers start popping up!
With all those fans sharing the story of betrayal, the whole business might crash and burn before we know it.
The ‘Wrong Prize.’
Need to publish an offer but don’t want any potential customers or fans to enter? This approach is the solution: offer a prize that no one in your target demographic would ever want. It’s that easy, little or no customer research required.
Have a nail salon? Offer sandpaper-lined gloves! Own a bookstore? The prize could be a used spare tire! (Can we get away with one more?) Operate a yoga studio? Offer steel-toed work boots!
The ‘Too much data.’
We want more. We want people to run screaming from our promotion. Let’s ask for too much personal information. It takes moments to add required fields to our offer. We’ll ask for a physical address, their mother’s maiden name, personal cell phone number, etc.
The ‘Bare Bones’
Nothing keeps entrants away like an unfinished, unprofessional contest. Luckily for you, dear reader, accomplishing this couldn’t be easier.
All you have to do is nothing.
We’ll avoid using the quick tools in our dashboard to add images or videos. We won’t customize our offer’s colors, fonts or form fields. Most importantly, we’ll keep all descriptions vague. Mention nothing about our prize or our company. That black text on a white background will make visitors close the offer.
‘The Ghost’
This classic strategy works every time, as long as you can keep a secret.
After your careful offer customization, avoid posting about it on your social media. Absolutely do not email subscribers with your offer’s URL. And surely, don’t craft and publish any paid ads! After all, no one can enter a promotion that they don’t even know is there.
We hope that this helped some of you achieve your goal of total contest failure! Looking for help to avoid these fatal mistakes? Email us at support@woobox. We’ll be happy to assist in making your promotion successful.